Latest Gear Live Videos

We’ve all been expecting Apple to release a 3G version of the iPhone at some point during this year. It turns out, it may be coming sooner rather than later. Ken Dulaney, analyst for Gartner, is saying that he has heard from sources over in Asia that Apple has placed an order for 10 million 3G iPhones. Even more interesting is that these would be 10 million on top of the current 10 million that Apple hopes to sell of the current iPhone version in 2008. If this is true, we’d expect to hear about it within the next few months. Maybe around the time that the iPhone 2.0 firmware upgrade is released, hmm?

Dulaney also mentioned that the 3G version of the iPhone may use an OLED screen, which would result in an improvement in battery life. Hey, if Apple went with EDGE for the current iPhone due to battery issues, it would make sense that in their leap to 3G, they’d try and conserve as much battery life as possible, right?

While we won’t know for sure when we will see a 3G model of the iPhone, I personally believe it is a safe bet that we will be seeing one within the next few months. The iPhone is nine months old, and while it is still a marvel, 9 months is a long time to go in the cell phone industry without seeing an upgrade. Apple also knows that 3G is a glaring omission from the current model. After all, there was a collective groan heard around the tech world when it was introduced back at MacWorld 2007 due to it’s lack of 3G. Even 14 months ago it was a huge letdown. Too much time has passed since then.

Bottom line, if you are in the market for an iPhone, but aren’t in the “need to have it now” mindset, you may want to wait a while.

Advertisement

A few weeks ago, we reported that sources revealed to us that Flash on the iPhone was coming soon. At the time, we felt very strongly that the reasons we stated were sound and accurate. Then, a few days ago, Steve Jobs stated that Flash wouldn’t be coming to the iPhone because it was “too slow to be useful” and that Flash Lite was “not capable of being used with the web.”

So we started getting comments on our last entry, like this one, saying that we were wrong. The iPhone 1.1.4 release came and went, as did the iPhone SDK announcement. Nothing from Apple regarding Flash, until Jobs said it was a no go. So we went back to our source, who was - and still is - 100% convinced that these are just stall tactics.

“This is not news nor is it a scoop,” says an Apple Inc. spokesman, declining further comment.

In a USA Today interview, Steve Jobs said that:

It will happen — I hope by the first half of next year. As soon as they’re ready, we’re ready.

The original story:

Get ready to welcome Sgt. Pepper to your iPod. Sir Paul has finally reached an agreement with Apple and the iTunes store. For $400 million, they will receive the Beatles’ back catalog. Proceeds will be divided between McCartney, Ringo Starr, the families of John Lennon and George Harrison, and no doubt will trickle down to Heather Mills. Michael Jackson, EMI, and Sony, who also own part of the Beatles music, will also receive stipends as part of the deal.

Toshiba has announced that it will stop using its HD DVD format. Since this company tried harder than most of the others, this undoubtedly marks the end of the disc war. The official announcement will probably be made in the next several days.

“We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business,” said a spokesperson from Toshiba who wished to remain anonymous. The company estimates they will lose hundreds of millions of dollars because of the concession.

We’ve been waiting for Flash support to hit the iPhone ever since…well…it launched. We’ve had to make do without Flash for almost eight months, and YouTube even had to convert a bunch of their catalog to H.264 in order for the service to be enjoyed on the iPhone. Well, we’ve just got word from a reliable source that Flash support is on its way to the iPhone, and it should be coming very, very soon. Speculating a bit further on our own, we are guessing that it would be pretty convenient for Flash support to be introduced alongside the iPhone SDK, wouldn’t you say? Now, we know that there isn’t much information here, but you also know how strongour sources are too - Flash on the iPhone is coming, just take our word for it, okay?

EDIT: We already have had a couple people ask about the supposed battery and CPU issues that were holding Flash back from being included on the iPhone in the first place. From what I am hearing, it was a complete fabrication. Flash has not yet made it to the iPhone solely due to business negotiations. As we said, it is now on its way!

Disney is apparently toying with the idea of a Magic Connection System in its parks. With a Nintendo DS, users can click individual areas and rides and find the waiting time. Check out restaurants by reading their menus. While this is still at the rumor stage, it is reported that people are indeed trying the program out. We think it is a fine idea since we tend to get navigationally challenged at large amusement parks. We would even welcome the idea of adapting the idea at a mall during the holidays, so that we can find out ahead of time if the latest hot Elmo toy is sold out before we get there.

AT&T‘s CEO Randall Stephenso let slip that a 3G iPhone is indeed on it’s way sometime in early 2008. This is an obvious evolution for the platform and is no surprise, but hearing it ‘right from the horses mouth’ certainly is a nice reassurance. While the exact timing of the release is unknown, he did indicate it would likely be prior to May. Based on AT&T’s HSDPA technology the 3G iPhone would feature the same blazing download and upload speeds as other 3G devices currently on the market. Apple has yet to comment on Stephenso’s early-announcement.

Gear Live’s prediction: the announcement of the 3G iPhone will come hand in hand with a more proper unveiling of the SDK at Macworld, likely with a bump to 16GB of storage to match the current generation iPod Touch. Gear Live’s predicament: we can’t wait.

We’ve been hearing rumors of Apple doing away with the Mac mini for quite a while now, and we were even surprised when the line received a refresh a couple of months ago. Now rumors are churning again that Apple might finally kill off the Mac mini, in favor of a new, slim Mac nano. As you can see in the image above, the Mac looks similar to an Apple TV, and includes an IR receiver. The question is - is this the Mac nano? As we all know, Leopard launches at the end of this month. We are expecting a few Apple announcements surrounding that - possibly an updated Apple TV, HD movies in iTunes, and some changes in the Mac line.

Ah, yes, another Apple event is nigh, and that normally means the email tips start flooding in. Case in point, this image of the “iPod touch”. Our immediate thought? Clever mockup…after all, it would make sense that Apple continues to make all their products have a similar look and feel. This iPod touch has a striking resemblance to the newly redesigned iMac that Apple released earlier this month. What do you think? Will we be seeing something like this - an OS X-based touchscreen iPod - from Apple tomorrow?

We just got a couple of images sent to us from an anonymous source who claims that this is the new iPod nano that we can expect Steve Jobs to announce at the Apple Special Event taking place this Wednesday, September 5th. Since we’ve seen so many photoshop mockups floating around the Internet recently, we are not saying these are the real deal by any stretch of the imagination - however, we love how these look, and a guy can dream, can’t he?

I guess we will see how it all pans out on Wednesday. We have another image of the supposed new nano after the break.